


Flowers

by BlueMoonHound



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alienation of the self, Characters who were content being dead, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Non-binary character, Past Character Death, Post stevens death, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound
Summary: Steven is dead.Rose is dead.And yet, I'm still here.
Relationships: Amethyst & Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Amethyst & Steven Universe, Pearl & Pink Diamond (Steven Universe), Pearl & Steven Universe, Pink Diamond & Steven Universe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> suggested listening: https://patriciataxxon.bandcamp.com/track/flowers

A sense of fingers and toes. A sense of body and choice: reforming, a simple practice I had done many times before. A new thing which I have never tried at all. An empty window, over which I look out. Hair blooms along the edges of my vision, puffy and white, and confusion blooms in my mind. My gloved hands land on the ground. Blue. Pink. Fingerless gloves. I do not remember those.

I lift my heavy head and look around. The tunnels and tubes of the burning room arch around me, familiar and solid in my mind. Garnet’s room. Where she usually stays the long days she wants to be alone. The temple, Earth. Familiar concepts.

I just woke up?

Was I sleeping? No, dreaming? I was- no, I died.

Died?

Oh.

I lift my tingling fingers from the tile floor of the burning room, staring into the central pot of lava, and curl them in my strange, pale hair. I’m not Steven anymore, I realize. I’m not Rose anymore. There is too much time sandwiched into my brain in which I was Steven for me to be Rose anymore. Even my clothes returned different. But it doesn’t feel like a dream. It’s not a dream, right? My gloves are dark blue. I was a human.

I have fingernails.

This fact is distracting to me. As a gem, as Rose and Pink, I never had fingernails. But I do, now. My body is entirely different. I’m huge, my head is far too close to the ceiling. I must be Diamond sized right now. I feel thrown off. What else is different?

I stand, carefully. Slowly. I am a little too big for the room, but I fit, so that’s good. I look at my feet-- I have on sandals still, my toes wiggling on command in the loose air. For some reason that’s a crazy relief. The sandals I’m wearing aren’t flip flops though, possessing far more straps. I stick my leg out to look at the weird frilly socks I’m wearing. And Jean-Pantaloons. Jantaloons.

Stars that’s awful. I’m laughing anyway, seized by the absurdity of my own cultural references. What even is this? I have far too much in my head and it hurts.  _ Jantaloons _ . It’s so fucking human. I feel like a child and an adult. Big and small. I wrap my arm around my bare midsection, pressing into my gem. Diamond oriented. I sink back down onto my knees. 

So who am I now?

I open my left palm. It’s like I have awoken from a dream in which I was Steven. I fell asleep in his birth and I am awake again now, after his death, his memories crowding my mind with the sharp texture of fresh time. And time has passed, everything that happened in his life must have actually happened, because the air above me is not crowded with the bubbles I remember so well.

I open my right palm. It’s like I died in my sleep, and now I remember being Pink Diamond. I study my human-creased fingers. Pink is my mind now, my history and present, because I remember being her. But I am still Steven. I lived that life, and it was all-encompassing for so many years. I did not simply take on the idea of Steven, but was Steven.

I’m not a fusion. I am sure of that. The gem in my belly is singular, and my thoughts are too thorough, too integrated, to be those of a fusion. I remember every embarrassing moment on Homeworld in vibrant mono-vision. I was just Pink, then. I remember every crazy misadventure as a human child, every scrape and burn still present in my mind, as though I was there, and not just watching. It’s all me.

I? We?

I am not a we, I know that. I am one person. Two lives, for sure. One person.

I don’t have a name. Do I?

Rose? Pink? Steven? I shudder. No.

I’ll worry about it later.

I look at myself in the reflection of one of the wider crystal arteries. My hair is familiar in its pale halo around my head, something I recognize from being Pink. My eyes are darker though, and I lean forward to stare at them, noticing that I have eyelashes,  _ pores _ in this face. My rhomboid pupils retract and expand using actual musculature. I can feel actual muscles move when I blink. I am not hungry or tired. I have no human body from what I can tell.

Whatever happened to me, whether I died or slept for a human lifetime, it is completely outside my control. And I am changed. This is never going back to anything I am familiar with.

I hear the door open and turn to see Pearl standing with both her hands over her mouth.

If I still had a heart it would be pounding- I feel like I’ve broken some kind of rule. I want to leave, but I know I’ll have to shape shift to fit through the door without serious finagling. I want to be out of there.

“Pearl?” I say.

My voice is Pink’s voice.

I recognize gem panic with one half of my mind, but it feels so unfamiliar-- the supercharging of every element in my body, every shockwave radiating from the gem in my belly. I stare at Pearl, not breathing.

She starts with a name that is wrong and aborts it. “Who are you?”

I look at my toes in my bright pink non-flip flop sandals. At my weird human biker gloves. At my fucking Jantaloons.

“I don’t know.”

“What happened to Steven?” Pearl asks, her voice a strained whisper that I can somehow still pick up.

I was an old man before. I was perfectly content with the idea that I would die. I didn’t want to live in a world if Connie might not be there. Was it in my control? I should have waited for her. She’s still alive. I hope she’s still alive. For all I know, I’ve been bubbled for a century.

“He died, I think,” I say honestly. Maybe a little too honestly, because Pearl looks sad now. I look anywhere else, and land on the pit of lava in the center of the room. 

I could stick my hand in that.

Absurd.

No, I could. It’s in our programming. I’m a diamond.

I reach over to the lava pit and put a hand in. Temperature as a gem is not anything like it is as a human. There’s an echo of that sensation under my fingers, but it’s a more neutral feeling this time. Like, the lava doesn’t feel to me like it’s even close to the boiling hot lava I know it is.

“I can’t do this again,” Pearl says, and I turn my head to look at her. She’s shaking. “Not again.”

Couldn’t have been a century, then. 

“Pearl,” I say. I sit up and reach forward to her. “I’m still here, it’s okay.”

“Who is still here?” she says. Her voice is a little wisp. She’s heartwrenching and perfect. 

“Rose. Steven. Me.”

“Rose?”

“At the very least I remember being her,” I chuckle and rub the back of my head. “I don’t think I am her anymore. In fact no, that’s way too weird. I’m not her.” I can feel a blush on my cheeks. “I’m just confused,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. How I’m here.”

I took my hand out of the lava at some point. I’m kind of relieved, it was freaking me out. I’m a little bit frustrated with myself for being so uncomfortable with it. I know who I am. I’m me, and I have a gem body, clearly. I reformed. I’m not a human anymore. I stuck my hand in lava. It’s fine.

A tear hits my ring finger.

“Do you want a hug?” Pearl asks. She sounds like me. I would laugh, if all my emotions hadn’t started roiling up in my belly. I nod and watch another tear hit my finger. I feel paralyzed. My whole world is thrown off by the idea of not being whoever I was. I was at peace. I was okay with the knowledge that I was going to die, and yet I am here, still alive, whatever I am. Confused.

Pearl hugs me, and I wrap a big arm around her. Her hair is soft even through my shirt construct.

I missed her.

What?

I lean over and hug her harder, confused and upset. She’s crying too. She steps up on my leg like we’ve done a billion times before, though, which we’ve never done before, and wraps her arms right around my neck.

I sob into her tiny shoulder.

I follow Pearl out of the burning room in a vague post-sobbing haze, acutely aware only of how large I am and how hard it is to fit through the tiny temple door. I’m big. I can stand in the entry to Steven’s room, the house, whatever I should call it-- but after that, I have to get down on my knees to get under the beams holding up its ceiling.

I feel exposed, despite the space being smaller than the burning room. Even as Rose I’m not used to being this big.

I suppose I could shapeshift.

Something about the way I am feeling tells me that is not going to happen.

“I’m – I’m going to get the others,” Pearl says. “If that’s okay with you.”

I stare at her for a minute, feeling about as blank as I probably look. I nod, mostly because saying no to her is more energy than its worth.

She wrings her hands, tense, and then skitters out the door. I watch her walking down the beach, urgency in her step, and I realize this place is going to be far too crowded soon. I can’t do this. I don’t even know who I am.

My eyes land on the bathroom door.

A half-formed memory blinks in and out of the back of my head. Will I fit through the door, though? It can’t be that hard. It would be like fitting a flexible tree into a door, right? Is that a doable thing?

I fold myself into the little alcove before the bathroom door and open it with a gentle push. I stick a leg in the door.

No, that’s not going to work.

I crouch and wiggle my shoulders in sideways, instead, slipping my hips through at the same angle and curling up. It wasn’t even that hard. I’m not that big, I suppose, I just feel so big because I haven’t ever been this big in a human space. Yeah. That’s how it must be, right?

I fold my legs.

I shut the door and lock it.

I stare at the door for a second.

I unlock it. 

I draw a deep sigh into my chest and release it. _Stars alfuckingmighty._

A diamond-pupiled stranger stares at me out of the mirror. Me, and not me. I put my hands on either side of the mirror, thinking for a moment that it would feel good to tear it out of the wall. Instead, I look back at myself.

I have ears. I pinch one in between my fingers. Flexible cartilage reminiscent of a human life I have lived gives under my grip. They aren’t pierced, which is a little bit of a disappointment. That would be easy to change, right? That’s visual constructs. I scrunch up my face, confused at how hard it is to process my various gem powers at the moment. Something shifts, though, and little pink earrings appear on my ears.

I’m not entirely sure how I did it, but at the same time, it was deeply intuitive.

Is this what gem programming is?

How am I having so much trouble with my gem programming?

I can’t stop a giggle. It’s a vanishingly tiny fragment of the pent-up madness in my system.

I run a hand through my fluffy hair. It’s pressed against the ceiling a little bit. I guess I could get used to the dark blue gloves, eventually.

I was dead.

I was at peace with that.

At some point I am going to need a good long scream.

I slouch down over m-- the bathtub rim and turn the water on. I slam my head against the porcelain, maybe a little too hard, but it doesn’t crack and it only hurts a little so it’s not worth caring about. Water runs down my face and into my hair. I don’t need to, but I breathe.

A little while later someone opens the bathroom door. I don’t look up. The footsteps are light but not quiet.

A flash of green appears in the corner of my vision as the peridot I knew when I was Steven sits down next to me and the tub.

I don’t acknowledge her. There is nothing she could possibly say that would make me feel better.

“You know, I’ve been in your spot before,” she says. “Upset, scared, moping in a bathroom…”

My mouth draws thinner. What does she think she’s talking about? Who does she think she’s talking to?

“What’s your point,” I say, my voice way too exactly the way it should and shouldn’t be in every way still.

“Just--” Peridot sighs. “We’re here for you, you know that, right? You don’t have to mope in the bathroom.”

“You’re a peridot that Steven knew.”

“Yes…? Pearl said that you remember that?”

“Yeah, but…” I put a hand on my face. “Listen. Steven is. Not me? Look. I don’t feel.. like… I know you. I want… I can’t right now. Could you please go away?”

The cognitive dissonance of explaining to this peridot that Steven is less than a hundredth of my life is starting to give me the biggest stars-damned headache I’ve ever fucking had. I rub the textured material of my biker gloves over my face and try not to look at her.

“Okay,” she says.

Her voice sounds tinier than I’ve ever heard it.

Guilt wells up in my system and almost overwhelms me. I don’t... I don’t want to let her go like this. It’s not like I deserve the well-wishing she’s given me. I don’t deserve anything.

The door closes behind her with a loud click.

_Don’t think like that,_ says a bit of my mind.

The other bit of my mind provides a series of degrading memories in a flash and I hold my breath until they pass.

I have always been tiny and weak. I’ve always been too big for my skin. I’ve always been dangerous and unwieldy, only worth the trouble if I can help. The fact that I have such a huge conflicting identity from that now feels almost like a self-betrayal. Steven is different. Steven is only me as much as I am, right? Steven is a hundredth of me. Steven is all of me.

Right?

I peel back my lower eyelids.

Steven hated me.

No I didn’t. I didn’t hate me.

I don’t hate me, right?

I definitely hate me more now that I’m not Steven than I did when I was Steven.

I think of Greg. Greg was great. Greg was…

Greg is dead.

No. I’m not going to think about Greg, I decide. My gem feels warm in a way that is distinctly not good.

The fact of the matter is I still wish I was dead.

I was dead. There was nothing in my self, for a short while. I was free. I had sacrificed all I had to that abyss with all the will I could muster. And now I was back, because only bad things ever happen to me.

And I am Steven, I think.

The thought repulses me.

But the thought that I am pink diamond does as well.

And any thought of Rose is too much. Rose was such a great fantasy I had dreamed. Rose was always just something to please my beautiful pearl. My graceful fighter.

Oh.

I guess that’s weird now.

My brain offers me a jeopardy game. _What Is Incest?_

I groan.

Life is a mess.

_You could shatter yourself,_ My brain adds. And I consider it, for a little bit. Is there anything I could do in here?

The door opens before I can make any plans.

“Hey buddy,” comes a familiar voice. Familiar. Not just familiar for Steven. Not just familiar for Pink. Familiar for  _ me _ .

I sit up and nearly bump my head on the ceiling. I cringe, because if I had I’m sure I would have broken through it.

“A-Amethyst,” I gasp. That warmth is back in my gem, working its way out and over my physical form in waves of tingling energy. Amethyst. Amethyst. It’s _Amethyst_.

“You want a hug?” she asks, holding her arms out. I am overwhelmed with joy just at seeing her. Amethyst.

“Yes!” I say, and she leaps into my arms. She’s tiny and warm and soft. “I missed you,” I whisper into her hair.

“Miss me? You were only gone for like a day!”

I feel affronted, though I’m not entirely sure why. “Part of me hasn’t seen you for like ninety years!!”

“Oh shit! Ya got me there. Do you have a name by any chance, Bigboy?”

“I don’t know yet,” I say. “Not any of the ones I used to have. I don’t even know if I want to be alive right now.”

“Hey.” I can feel Amethyst’s hand touch my scalp under my kinda damp hair. “You doing alright? Will you tell me what’s going on in that chungy noggin of yours?”

I look at her face. There’s a tug in my form to tell her nothing, to smile and lie or to tell some vague and veiled half-truth. It’s a really intense pull too. I don’t remember it being so bad when I was human. Not since I was corrupted. But before Steven, it was all I did for thousands of years. Despite myself the habit is denser now. I want to grip something tight, and settle on a frilly sock.

“I’m… new,” I start. “Again.”

She sits on my knees and waits for me to continue.

“It’s all just getting mixed around in my head. Because I’m.. Amethyst, I’m like a quarter billion years old. And I remember that now. And I’m also… I’ve been this other person who isn’t exactly pink Diamond and certainly didn’t know he was pink Diamond for part of his life, and I died. I died and I was content with that. Twice. And now the strongest memories I have are… that.”

“Stars, dude, that’s a lot to think about right there,” Amethyst says. “Will you hang out and see if living’s a good option for you before you make any brash decisions? We’ll miss you a lot if you have to go.”

She sounds so calm, but I can feel that she’s not – her emotions boiling like a pot of fear and sadness in her mind - so I nod. I can at least try, for her and the crystal gems. That’s what I did for all of them before I met Greg.

I doubt I’ll stay for long.

“You think you can leave this bathroom? This place is cramped.”

“I’m mostly in here because I wasn’t ready to talk to a bunch of people,” I admit. “Um, who is out there?”

“Garnet, Pearl, Bismuth, Peridot, Connie, and Lapis.”

Six people. I let out a breath. I don’t want to tell the new friends to leave, even if I’m a little tempted. “Alright. Yeah. I’m… I can try that. That doesn’t sound like the worst?” I try to smile.

And Connie is _alive_. That’s an odd little relief. 

“Okay! I’ll meet you out there.” She hops off her knees and walks out, leaving the bathroom door open.

I stare at it for a minute.

To my surprise, the room outside feels a lot less cramped with people in it. Everyone except Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl are staring at me though, and that’s a little bit uncomfortable. It’s a lot uncomfortable, actually.

“Hey everyone!” I say.

It’s just eyes. I can feel something in me starting to swarm. I can’t fall apart in front of these people. I could hurt them. I could scare them.

“Um, Actually, this is too much for me now, so I’m going outside to scream.”

Before anyone can try to make sense of me I scurry past and push myself through the tiny screen door separating me from the outside of the house, and leap off the balcony with enough force to accidentally break the railing. I glance back at it with a grimace but keep running.

I dive into the ocean. I am brimming. I duck my head under. I swim until I can tangle my hands in seaweed.

I scream.

_It’s fine,_ I think. _It’s fine. I am going to be fine_. My body thinks differently.

I don’t even know how to introduce myself.

The water around me boils, the sand beneath me indents and fractures.

I stop screaming and take a deep breath. My lungs fill with water, but it doesn’t hurt.

I don’t feel anything.

No, no, it’s fine. They understand. Right? _Stars afuckingbove._ I want to do literally anything stupid right now but instead I curl into a ball on the sand and just think about it.

I can start with figuring out how to introduce myself. It’s a nothing battle, but that means I can win it.

I don’t want to be called pink. Pink is a word that White and Blue and Yellow used for a younger me that I don’t really recognize. I can never go back to that when it was used so much to make me feel small. I feel cramped, and big, and overwhelming, now. I feel the stares on me. Pearl’s. The new ones.

Steven is a daydream of mine. I love me for being him. At least a little. But I hate me for the same reason. I’m so conflicted over myself. Nothing is easy to think about anymore, and it’s totally because of him.

It’s because of him that I have some understanding of human gender-- just enough to not want to use She pronouns. Just enough to not want to use He pronouns either. It won’t matter-- the gems know what “they” is, but it feels like it should anyway.

Greg is dead. Rose would be out anyway. If Steven’s memory serves to point towards anything it is that no one feels comfortable with the concept of Rose anymore. I don’t. Rose… is torment. I don’t want to be her, and I don’t want to think about the way I was when I was her. And I don’t want to think about me.

So I don’t. I can let this rest.

I stretch out on the ocean floor. I can’t see the stars from here, but the longer I wait, the more the world settles. Minnows begin to chew at my toes. Fish roil and wiggle back into the water above me. Sand slowly fills in my crevices.

This is time. Life always finds a way to come back.

I put a hand on my gem. Fish scatter. After a time, they return again. And the sun begins to rise. And I think about a tape I made once, a hundred years ago.

_Nora_ , I think. _Nora is a good name._

_ We’ll start with that. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to all my friends for putting up with this crazy AU. I'm working on another big steven & pink project that's taken me... the entire year, so look forward to that. I'm hoping to get the first chapter out before 2020 closes. We'll see if I can write another 6,000 words in that time.


End file.
